EW. This combination had very commonly the sound of o, which it yet retains in shew' and strew.' The evidences of this are unmistakable in such rhymes as "shew" with "owe," Honour's Academy, 1610, P. I. p. 53; "shew" with "below," Ib. P. III, p. 88; "shewse" with "woes," Sidney's Sonnets, 1605, p. 484; "shewes" with "oppose," Drayton's Battle of Agincourt; "shew" with 'so,' Shakespeare's Lucrece; and in such spellings as "a Shrow [shrew], or else a Sheepe," Albion's England, 1602, p. 41; "she pitched tew" (tow), Ib. p. 144, and "shewres' for showers,' and "shewre" for shower,' Ib. p. 193. Similar examples are numberless. See the Note on "I beshrew all shrews," Vol. III. p. 471, and on "thou hast tam'd a curst shrew," Vol. IV. p. 506, and the memorandum on S. But ew was also pronounced with the Italian sound of u, or as 00; and even shew,'-the preterit, had that pronunciation, which it still preserves in New England. See it, for instance, rhyming with "hew hew" (hue), dew" (due), and "threw," in the Faerie Queene, Book II. Canto III. St. 22, and (though nearly a hundred years later) even the infinitive with "due" in Jo Quarles' Triumphant Chastity, 1684, and the plural noun with "abuse," Ibid. p. 43. In such words as 'sue,' 'rue,'' true,' Louis,' ew was very commonly used to express the vowel sound, as in the example just cited. GH. That these letters had the sound of ƒ much oftener in the Elizabethan period than at the present day appears not only from such rhymes as that noticed in Vol. IV. p. 490, and "daughter with "after," Pastor Fido, 1647, p. 150, and also in Romeus and Juliet, Ed. Collier, p. 65, and " taught" with "soft," Browne's Pastorals, Vol. I. p. 68, but by spelling like the following: "Dicke. What cal'st thou the thing wee were bound to? Mar. A raughter. Raffe. I will rather hang myselfe on a raughter in the house,” &c. Lilly's Gallathea, Act I. Sc. 4. Yet gh was also silent, and daughter' was pronounced dawter, as at this day, of which there is so much unmistakable evidence that none need be cited here. There seems to be little room for doubt that the sound of this combination was originally guttural, and that this sound passed into silence through various and uncertain ways. Indeed, I am inclined to comfort the gentleman who said to the Prince of Wales at the New York ball, slapping him on the back, "Now, Prince, this dance belongs to my darter," by suggesting that the accomplished translator of the Pastor Fido (see the example cited above) might have impeached his politeness, but sustained his pronunciation, by asking him what he was arter.* H. There is reason to believe that the dropping and 'exhaspirating' of this letter, now so common in England, is not an altogether modern custom. We find, for instance, 'host' spelled without the h in Drayton's Cromwell, in Albion's England, and in Thomas of Reading, passim; and as that word was most commonly spelled with the h, this shows either that the h was left unpronounced by a sufficient number of readers to make oast or ost seem correct, or that the h would be pronounced when not written. Indeed, Jonson, in his Grammar, gives host' and 'humble' as examples of a class of words in which h“is written without power." * Since these remarks upon gh were put in type, the pamphlet entitled Collier, Coleridge, and Shakespeare, (Lond. 1860,) has reached me. On pp. 61 and 62 the author has cited the following examples of rhyme, to show that gh had the sound of f or not, "at the option of the poet." "Have you not heard it said full oft A woman's nay doth stand for naught?" Passionate Pilgrim. "Farewell! thou hast me taught To think me not the first That love hath set aloft And casten in the dust." Surrey's Forsaken Lover. "Sharper to man is than the swiftest shaft His eye the way by which his heart is caught: Chapman's Hero and Leander Though throned aloft Of each man weighs yet both the work and thought." "Hatred, and strife and fighting cometh after Ibid. Hesiod, Georg. I. Barclay, Eclogue II. Effusion of blood, and oftentime manslaughter." But do these not rather show merely a variable pronunciation? Rhyme was not necessary for this use of gh, as we have seen by the passage from Lilly. I. We now give this letter in some rare positions the name sound of e; and the pronunciation obleege, common in the last century, yet lingers on the lips of many not unlettered people. But in Shakespeare's time i had this sound in monosyllables and in many other positions in which it has now either its name sound, or its short, obscure sound, or the short, obscure sound of u, both of which latter sounds, it is almost needless to remark, it has had in a greater or less degree for centuries. Of the pronunciation of i as e such evidence as the following is abundant: "the world to weet [wit],” Antony and Cleopatra, Act I. Sc. 2, fol. 1623; "Spleets [splits] what it speaks,” Idem Act II. Sc. 7, Ibid.; "the breeze [brize] upon her," Idem Act III. Sc. 9, Ibid.; "a kind of weeke [wick] or snufe," Hamlet, Act IV. Sc. 7, 4to. 1604; “At whose abuse our flyring [fleering] world can winke,” Churchyard's Charity, 1595; “Doth neither church, queer [quire choir], court, nor country spare," Ibid.; "In Dauid's Psalms true miter [metre] flows," Churchyard's Praise of Poetry, 1595. In the word written generally spirit, sprite, or spright, the vowel sound was ee, as is shown by the spelling spreet, which is very common, and which is found on the same pages with the others. See also in the following passage evidence that 'high' was pronounced he: "- which the High goat [he-goat] as one seeing, yet reserving revenge for a fitting time," &c. Braithewaite's Survey of History, 1638, p. 342. IE. The general pronunciation of this combination, when it had not the sound of its first vowel, is clearly indicated to have been, as at present, the name sound of e, by such phonographic irregularity of spelling as the following, which are promiscuously taken from various books of the period: peece, shreeke, yeelde, feende, pieres (peers), pievish, stiep (steep), theeves, · beleeve, cheefe, greefe, bief (beef), &c., in which, and in like words ie and ee were used interchangeably. But pierce' and 'fierce seem to have been very generally pronounced purse and furse, which is shown unmistakably by rhymes. Upon this pronunciation of the former word, too, depends the significance of the title of Nash's Pierce Penniless. See, also, in Drayton's Elegy to the Noble Lady I. S. : "Your like we in a burning Glasse may see, So although some authors - a very few, according to my observation indicate an analogic pronunciation of these words by the spelling peerce, and feerce, I think that there can be no question that the passage in Love's Labour's Lost, "Master person, quasi pers-on. And if one should be pierc'd," &c. (See Vol. III. p. 462,) implies the pronunciations purson and purse; as to which, indeed, in spite of the quotations in the Note upon the passage, I had never more than a passing doubt. So also as to "if Percy be alive I'll pierce him." 1 Henry IV. Act V. Sc. 3. L. This letter was silent in words in which it is now heard, and heard in others in which it is now silent. My memorandums of instances of these pronunciations are mislaid, but I distinctly remember such spelling as fautes, for faults,' haulty, for haughty,' and Raph and Rafe for 'Ralph.' As to the pronunciation of l in could,'' should,' and 'would,' (See the Note on 'could,' Vol. VIII. p. 278,) our literature down to and past the middle of the seventeenth century is rife with evidence of it; though soon after that time I think the 7 began to go out in polite circles. See the verses 66 Upon the Effigies," &c. in the folio of 1632, given in Vol. II. of this work. Say (who alone effect such wonders could) Also in Venus and Adonis: "Thus she replies: Thy palfrey, as he should, In Tusser's Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry: - Not get for gold.” —p. 6, Ed. 1610. "Old corne worth gold So kept as it should." - p. 37, Ib. Similar examples of the rhyming of these three auxiliaries with old,' 'mould,' 'cold,' 'hold' and its compounds, fold,' &c., abound in the works of all our poets even towards the beginning of the eighteenth century. Indeed, the point is one upon which no observant reader of our past literature can have a doubt. From the frequent spelling of jealous,' jealious, e. g., "That of the neighbourhood the Brutes so jelious were of wrong.” Albion's England, C. 84, p. 349, Ed. 1606, it would seem that had in that word the sound (Fr. mouillé) which it still retains in rebellious,' and 'stallion,' where, I think, the ¿ results only from the tendency to this pronunciation, which, i having first obtained in these words, the vowel was added for the sake of conformity. O and OA, There seems to have been a great irregularity in the pronunciation of syllables, and specially of monosyllabic words, now written with o or oa. Words which have now, and which, in the best usage, had even then, the long pure sound of o, were very generally pronounced with the short sound; the converse being equally true. This irregularity is exemplified at the present day in Great Britain in the word 'groat,' which among the cultivated is pronounced both grot, to rhyme with 'shot,' and grote, to rhyme with 'rote;' so also in toad' which some well-educated old-country folk (Mrs. Kemble for instance) pronounce with a broad dissyllabic utterance of both vowels, the first long, the second short-tō-ăd. The same pronunciation obtains in a less degree with regard to throat,' 'road,' 'load,' and other like words. And yet it is very certain that Shakespeare himself pronounced all these words with the simple sound of o — so certain by evidence both of rhythm and rhyme that it need not be shown by example. Florio, in his Italian Dictionary, gives as examples of the pure Italian sound of o, the words "bone, dog, flow, god, rod, stone, tone." (See Vol. III. p. 226 of this work.) But although Florio was a professor of language, and had been several years in England, mingling in the most cultivated society of the capital, (the Earl of Southampton was his patron, and he was reader to the Queen,) it is possible that he was in error about the pronunciation of 'dog' 'god,' and 'rod.' I am inclined to the opinion that a pronunciation similar |